Becoming a real adult aka making money with money

I do not consider myself a "grown up." I am 23 years old, I have my own apartment, and I have a job in an intellectual field, and I am financially supported by no one but myself (except for the couch my parents bought me from IKEA, but I like to think I worked hard enough in the yard to earn most of that). So why am I not a grown up?

It's kind of difficult to describe. I am not really accountable for anything. No one depends on me. And I still love video games and south park.

One thing I have done on the path to adulthood is start to invest. And that I think makes me a little more grown up. I've never really been in charge of my money until now. When I was in 6th grade my dad started paying me to mow the lawn and do generic yardwork. I would also get some generous birthday money from my great aunt and my grandma for my birthday and Hanukkah. I ended up with about $5000 by the time I was 15 and my dad and I would go to the bank and put the money into CDs. Interest rates weren't that great, but it was better than a savings account.

Then I started to make some serious money with my high school summer jobs (aka coaching swimming and private lessons). So either right before or right after my freshman year of college, I opened an account with Fidelity, a financial services company of which you've probably heard. But still, the money just sat there.

Now let's catch up to last fall. I've also been able to save some money that I've been earning from graduate school. Once again, the money sits in the bank. Eventually my mom sends me a digital copy of a book called "The Elements of Investing" (you can tell the authors think they're amazing as they compare their book to "The Elements of Style"). I read the first 75 or so pages and took away one message: Invest as early as you can (actually, another HUGE message from the first few chapters was to never get into credit card debt). Basically, over the long run, there is long term growth in the stock market if you look at the S&P 500 or Dow Jones. And you nicely diversify your money so that if a major company fails, you aren't completely screwed.

Now we are at a few months ago. As some/most of you know, Will, a close and longtime friend of mine, passed away in mid-Jan. In the days following his death, my friends, my friends' parents, my parents and I would spend time with Will's parents. We would share all of our fond memories of him. It was during this time that I learned why my friend Will never had a job.
Will was huge into the stock market. When the market crashed in 2008, Apple stock was valued at under $100. Will bought a lot. And I mean a lot. At the time of his death, the stock was valued at ~$340. Apple is only one example of his success stories in the market. He certainly had a talent for investing.

Anyway, I figured I would give it a try. My dad went over how the whole thing works and how to choose stocks/funds. Taking the advice of the book, I decided to only invest in mutual funds. Plus, I have no idea what company to invest in anyway. Regardless, I have now invested in 3 funds:

Fidelity Small Cap Discovery Fund (FSCRX)
Fidelity Focused Stock Fund (FTQGX)
Fidelity Blue Chip Growth (FBGRX)

Anyway, theyre all good apparently. The first one focuses on small companies (still large by our standards, but not like Apple or Google) while the second two focus on large companies with a lot of potential for growth. Blue Chip focuses more on high tech companies and those that are found in the Dow or S&P. I suppose I'm pretty well-balanced. If you got a mutual fund to recommend to me, let me know!

This whole thing has really gotten me thinking about how strange it is that my high school never taught us financial responsibility. I think that should be part of the curriculum and not an elective course. The best way to be wealthy later in life is to save early and invest early. A 1-semester course could involve, for lack of a better comparison, a fantasy baseball-like stock market. That is, the students are given fake money to invest where they choose. Then they just follow the market. Whoever ends up with the most money at the end of the semester gets extra credit on the final or a gift certificate or whatever. Not a bad idea, right? It's actually a good idea because my friend Norvik said he took a course that did that. There were some loopholes in the course though into which I do not want to get. I don't think it was a required course though.

I've made some major upgrades to my aquarium. I've got to blog about that soon.